Is direct mail dead?

In May of this year, Borrell Associates released a report, “Direct Mail Falls, E-mail Soars,” that caused a bit of a ruckus on the Internet. You can download the executive summary for free, or you could buy the full report (the company’s site boasts that the full report comes with a webinar) for a whopping $995. In their executive summary, Borrell Associates reports:

We’re [Borrell Associates] predicting a 39 percent decline for this Goliath [direct mail] over the next five years, from $49.7 billion in annual ad spending in 2008 to $29.8 billion by the end of 2013. If that occurs, direct mail will fall from the No. 1 placeholder for ad revenue to No. 4, behind the Internet, broadcast TV and newspapers.

The market research company predicts that e-mail will fill the gap, with its cost-effective allure. The following are two of the top-rated discussions on the topic.

Death of Direct Mail: An Alternate Perspective
The Digital Nirvana
, 5/28/2009

Direct Mail Doomed, Long Live Email
Media Post News
, 5/20/2009

Bottom line? Any direct mail — snail mail or e-mail — needs to be targeted and relevant to the receiver. Work with your marketing and design agencies to ensure your message is the RIGHT message, otherwise it’ll end up in the recycle bin.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Comments »

 
 

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>